With San Francisco Unified School District facing budget cuts of up to 24% over the next 2 years, summer classes are on the chopping block, according to this week’s SF Examiner. Only courses for 11th and 12th grade students who require credits to graduate are expected to be preserved.
Summer school cuts will save the district just $2 million of its $83 million budget deficit, and will disproportionately affect students who are already failing, many of whom are Black and Latino.
Last year, districts across the country – including LA Unified, San Diego, Sacramento, and nearly the whole state of Florida, to name a few – made significant cuts to summer programs or eliminated them altogether.
Though district enrichment programs disappeared from SFUSD’s offerings years ago, remedial district summer school programs are an integral component of the district’s efforts to support low-performing, mostly low-income students; they provide failing students a second chance to master grade-level material, minimize the summer learning loss that adds enormously to the achievement gap, and give thousands of San Francisco students a free, safe place to be during the summer.
Aim High, already turning down about half of all applicants in San Francisco, will be further stretched in this difficult fundraising environment. It is unlikely that summer enrichment programs like Aim High, Breakthrough Collaborative and the Boys and Girls Club will be able to accommodate the thousands of students in need of academic intervention and left with no free option this summer.
SFUSD’s next Board of Education meeting is Tuesday, January 26th, and budget cuts – including summer school – are likely to be on the agenda. Who will be there to advocate for the district’s neediest students?
With San Francisco Unified School District facing budget cuts of up to 24% over the next 2 years, summer classes are on the chopping block, according to this week’s SF Examiner. Only courses for 11th and 12th grade students who require credits to graduate are expected to be preserved.
Summer school cuts will save the district just $2 million of its $83 million budget deficit, and will disproportionately affect students who are already failing, many of whom are Black and Latino.
Last year, districts across the country – including LA Unified, San Diego, Sacramento, and nearly the whole state of Florida, to name a few – made significant cuts to summer programs or eliminated them altogether.
Though district enrichment programs disappeared from SFUSD’s offerings years ago, remedial district summer school programs are an integral component of the district’s efforts to support low-performing, mostly low-income students; they provide failing students a second chance to master grade-level material, minimize the summer learning loss that adds enormously to the achievement gap, and give thousands of San Francisco students a free, safe place to be during the summer.
Aim High, already turning down about half of all applicants in San Francisco, will be further stretched in this difficult fundraising environment. It is unlikely that summer enrichment programs like Aim High, Breakthrough Collaborative and the Boys and Girls Club will be able to accommodate the thousands of students in need of academic intervention and left with no free option this summer.
SFUSD’s next Board of Education meeting is Tuesday, January 26th, and budget cuts – including summer school – are likely to be on the agenda. Who will be there to advocate for the district’s neediest students?
